


Accidental Proposal

by ThoughtfulFangirl



Category: Legend of Korra, LoK, The Legend of Korra - Fandom, tlok
Genre: F/F, relationship, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-06 05:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11593491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulFangirl/pseuds/ThoughtfulFangirl
Summary: Asami has started thinking about getting married, but only just a couple years into the relationship, she has doubts that Korra would want to take that step just yet. Unfortunately, Asami isn’t very great about keeping these thoughts to herself.





	1. Unexpected Arrival & Reveal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feministfangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feministfangirl/gifts).



> This fic began with a prompt from Feministfangirl for some Korrasami getting engaged. 

The end of sleep was usually a disappointment to Asami, but this morning in particular it felt worse. She was fairly certain she was dreaming about her mother. They were playing Pai Sho? She wasn’t certain. She hadn’t been a child in the dream, which kind of explained the absence of Hiroshi. But Asami’s mother had died before she had even become a teenager. The anniversary of that passing had only been about a month ago.

Asami slipped out of bed and looked at the empty space meant for Korra. Her girlfriend of just over two and a half years was on a trip however, and neither had been sure when she left how long it would take. Asami never wanted Korra to be gone, but usually she could take advantage of the extra spare time and obsess over her various projects, but she hadn’t been able to focus this time. She had been feeling… off.

Even though it had only been almost three years since her father died, almost three years since she and Korra were able to admit their feelings, she felt ready to move forward. In fact, there was a certain feeling of desperation in that.

Standing in the open space of her bedroom, Asami began to stretch, locking her feet in place, shoulder width apart, and leaning to either side; putting her feet together and stretching her fingertips to the floor, her nose just touching her knees; and doing several rounds of jumping exercises to help erase the last of her grogginess.  

She knew the feelings probably weren’t completely healthy. She and Korra didn’t need to marry now for them to consider each other family. They had been family even before they became romantic. She didn’t feel as though Korra would leave her, though the transient nature of the Avatar made her anxious from time to time that Korra might need… more.

She was fairly certain the feeling of desperation came quite directly from her lack of family and how Korra felt like that family. Oh, she felt familial with Tenzin and Pema and the children. She even felt familial with Mako and Bolin. But it… wasn’t the same.

So she had indulged herself while Korra was away. She’d drawn up some sketches and gone to the water tribe district and found a jeweler. She commissioned a rough draft of a traditional water tribe engagement necklace—something the jeweler could whip up in a couple days, something Asami could hold and examine so that she could perfect her design. It was always advantageous to get a working copy of something to see how best to improve it.

It had turned out nice. It was definitely done hastily, and the size wasn’t quite right, nor the materials exactly what she’d want the final piece to be made up of. The artist had also taken some liberties with the design on the pendant. Asami could appreciate that the jeweler had wanted something that looked more water tribe—and Asami wasn’t against a design that incorporated that—but she felt the way it was done lost a little too much of the markings of Raava which graced Korra’s back, imprinted like a tattooist’s finest masterpiece there.

Asami had almost fallen asleep in her workroom—as she was often prone to doing—pondering over the piece. Making new sketches. Jotting down some ideas. She wasn’t totally sure she wanted Raava’s form on display. She didn’t know how Korra would feel about that.

But she had time. Focusing on this allowed her to work through this need until she was sure Korra was ready too. Knowing Asami, she’d be able to fill a jewelry box with drafts until she got it right or found the right time to ask. This would only be the first of those.

She moved into some lunges and ended with some simple forms from her martial arts training, and finally she did some pull ups on the contraption she’d designed along one doorway, since both she and Korra tended to do them anyway. (They had a workout room for any times they want to work out at the same time.)

Finally feeling awake, she got up. She hitched a hip up, resting a hand on it, considering a shower. She had nowhere to be for a couple of hours now, and she didn’t really feel like a shower at the moment. Instead, she bound her hair up in a ponytail and, with the necklace on her mind, headed directly to her workroom, which was mostly a large garage with one corner designed like an open office area.

When she entered what Korra teasingly dubbed her ‘lair,’ Asami padded toward her work tables. As she rounded the entrance toward the side of the room hosting her office space, she blanched.

“Korra.” She whispered, horrified. The woman was seated in Asami’s chair with her arms crossed over the table.

She must have come home early—while Asami was asleep. But she checked the workroom first, because of course she did!

Asami felt her heart slam against her ribcage. She’d left the prototype engagement necklace on the desk, out in the open, on top of all her papers of the sketches. When she had nearly fallen asleep there last night, she’d simply gotten up and walked to the bedroom, not putting anything away.

One quiet step at a time so as not to wake her girlfriend, Asami rounded her worktable, trying to look at the desk. When she’d made a circle and was in front of Korra, she saw the woman had fallen asleep with the piece of jewelry in her hand. Her head was facing it, as if she’d fallen asleep staring at it.

Asami’s fingers trembled as her blood roared in her ears. What had Korra thought? There was no way she would have misunderstood the meaning of the piece. ‘Oh Asami, how did you let this happen?’ She berated herself.

Feeling a rising panic, Asami remained rooted, going over the options in her head. Should she wake Korra? What would she even say?  
Should she work on one of the prototypes for Sato Industries and let Korra approach her?  
Should she leave altogether? Pretend she hadn’t seen that Korra had found it? That she didn’t know Korra had returned early? That felt terribly wrong, but it’s what she wanted to do. Back out, not deal with it.

Her hands felt sweaty, and she rubbed her fingers into her palms as if to rub the sweat away as she ran through her options. Finally, quietly as she could, she turned and left the garage.


	2. Homecoming Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Korra returns home early and finds something in her girlfriend's work room she wasn't supposed to.

The swearing in ceremony for President Jiang Sun had gone exceptionally well. While Korra was there as part of the ceremonies, she was also on the lookout for the last remnants of the Earth Empire army. They’d had to offer Kuvira some deals for information on who she suspected would still be running the remaining resistance from those not taken into custody. It had led to Suyin and Lin and their assisting earthbenders to ruin the EE’s last attempt at preventing the new government even before the ceremonies had gotten underway. 

With the plot revealed and stopped and the Beifong sisters remaining to oversee the next several days, Korra had felt comfortable leaving that night after the State Dinner, and so she had.

It’s not that she didn’t want to stay and help the Earth Kingdom with the next several days—in fact she was intrigued by the whole process—it was just that she had felt so uncomfortable leaving home when she knew it was right around the anniversary of Asami’s mother’s death. She hadn’t said this to her girlfriend; otherwise, Asami would have felt wrong with Korra returning early if she could, but Korra had resolved herself to get back home as soon as she could.

It meant she got home very late that night, tired and disheveled. She didn’t even bother to unpack, just dropped her things in the coat closet just inside the mansion Asami had reclaimed after the death of her father, and headed straight for the attached garage/workspace Asami had added. She was almost always there, and Korra knew she was better suited going there to collect her girlfriend and then get them off to bed.

When Korra entered Asami’s lair, she was surprised that all the lights weren’t on. The little illumination that reached beyond the doorway was enough to let her know that the lamp light at Asami's desk was on, which made Korra smile. Of course her girlfriend had fallen asleep at her desk again.

Korra padded tiredly into the room and headed for Asami’s office space. There was no silhouette against the light as Korra came in view of the desk; Asami wasn’t there. It wasn’t like her to leave the desk lamp on…

Making the rest of her way to the desk, Korra lifted a hand, keeping it far from the desk and its papers, and called fire to her palm. She then turned to pull the chain to click the light off. As she reached, something glinted in the firelight.

Korra closed her fingers around the flame, extinguishing it, as she turned to fully face the desk and see what had caused the glimmer. Probably a mechanical part for one of Asami’s projects… but she could have sworn the flicker was blue. As she leaned onto the desk, her eyes fell upon the piece of jewelry. It looked like… _was_ a Northern Water Tribe engagement necklace.

Korra dropped into the chair in front of the desk, her skin suddenly flushed with warmth. She swooped the item into her palms and looked down, butterflies in her stomach. “Asami!” She whispered. Of course Korra was from the Southern Water Tribe and not the north, but her father was from the North, and ever since the end of the 100 year war, many northerners had migrated to the south and brought their traditions with them; those traditions had quickly become popular after the large dwindling of the south’s population as a result of the war.

It took her eyes a moment to work out the shape of the design on the pendant and then grinned without even meaning to. It was clearly some heavily water tribed version of Raava.

It was then that Korra’s eyes found the papers under the treasure. Page after page of sketches of a Northern Water Tribe engagement necklace were strewn all across the length of it. Each one was tweaked differently, but she found it particularly interesting that in all of them, Raava’s form was more obvious. Looking back at the piece, Korra smiled. Raava didn’t have a particularly water tribe look to her; it made sense that the artist, not knowing what Asami was going for, had come up with the design they had.

Korra frowned then. Asami had then clearly gone to a water tribe artisan, but the quality of the piece wasn’t nearly on par with some of Asami’s finer jewelry. Korra frowned for a moment, thinking, and then it clicked. Because of all the sketches, she had assumed Asami had been working on it long enough to be done, but she wasn’t. This was what she liked to refer to as a prototype. Not only was Korra not supposed to have seen this, but she was seeing it much, much earlier than Asami ever intended.

Exhaustion finally catching up with her, Korra leaned over and rested her head on one arm. She used the other hand to hold the necklace in front of her so she could take it all in.

Marriage.

What would it be like to marry Asami? Their lives wouldn’t change much… They lived together, were seen together, worked well together. It would be a nice statement of commitment…

Of course, it would need to be in Republic City! Except… there was almost no way the avatar and the CEO of Sato Industries to wed in _Republic City_ without it being nearly as huge a ceremony as the one she’d just left. She… didn’t want that. She wanted something low key and intimate. She’d want a little more… quiet… to take in making Asami her wife—becoming Asami’s wife… instead of playing the politician.

Asami would be happy to marry at the South Pole. Korra could wear traditional garb of the water tribe more comfortably in that climate, and, she closed her eyes, imagining what sort of garment Asami would put together. She’d make an effort to keep it in line with Southern Water Tribe traditions—just like she had with the engagement piece—but she’d have her own, modernly stylish flair to the piece that would blow Korra away.

Although Korra pictured it fondly—Katara performing? Her father and chief presiding over the reception, her mother at his side… it still didn’t feel right. She and Asami had met in Republic City, cultivated a life together here, made friends and had so many special moments here. But the politics! If only there was someplace neutral, someplace people wouldn’t expect…

Air Temple Island. They could marry there. That had come to be seen less as a part of Republic City and more like some sort of embassy for the Air Nomads. That _sounded_ political, but given the nature of the Air Nomads, they were distinctly neutral.

Yes, she could see it. She felt her body relax as she saw them on some isthmus of earth, surrounded by water, a fire nearby, wind swirling around them as she and Asami looked at each other, while Tenzin stood before them to join them in harmony and grace. Mako would attend to Korra and Bolin to Asami. There’d be room for the others—her parents, Lin and Suyin, Pema and the children and all the others.

 They would all look dashing,

    but no one more so than Asami and herself. They would glow.

              There would be so much happiness.

                                    So much Celebration…

 

An ache in Korra’s arm and a faint smell of orchids pulled her up from sleep. She opened her eyes and looked up to see the necklace, still resting in her palm. Warmth bloomed anew through her. It hadn’t just been a dream!

Nearly popping out of her seat, Korra looked around. Sunlight poured through the high windows of the fancy garage. Rolling her should to work out the stiffness, she used her metal bending this time to click the lamp at the desk off.

Filled with excitement, Korra headed to her and Asami’s room. She simply had to see her! Discuss with her the dreams she’d had that night—about beautiful weddings at sunset on the cliffs of Air Temple Island. But as she reached their shared space, the bed was empty. Korra stopped abruptly, that extra warmth draining away from her. Asami wasn’t here. And she hadn’t been in her lair. The shower wasn’t running. These were the places she would usually be at, this time of day when she didn’t have work. She didn’t usually have work right about now.

Although who was Korra to say? Asami didn’t know Korra had been here at all! This meant Korra had options. Asami was going to surprise her, and Korra would have been flummoxed! Although she had reached such a companionship with the woman over their time together, marriage just hadn’t occurred to her. Oh sure, wistfully she’d think about it from time to time, but it just didn’t occur to her to do it soon.

Korra paced the room a little then, mulling it over. It made sense, when she saw the engagement necklace, that of course they would marry now, but was there a reason she hadn’t considered it before? Was she afraid of taking that step? Did she feel like there was a chance Asami wasn’t right for her?

Korra shook her head, causing her growing hair to fall in her face a little. She pushed it back. No. It just simply hadn’t occurred to her. She had been happy and content, so she hadn’t looked beyond that between everything that kept her life busy. Clearly Asami had.

“Well, that’s settled!” She said to herself. She then headed for their balcony. She needed to leave without risking seeing Asami. It would be a better surprise if the woman had yet to realize she was home. Grinning, Korra airbended over the side of the balcony to the ground below and headed for the city. She needed to find jeweler herself.


	3. Proposals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Korra and Asami come face to face

Korra walked with a skip in her step back home. She'd spent most of the day on her mission—a lot more time than she'd meant to honestly. First she'd stopped by a couple jewelry shops before she had gotten the idea. After all, she couldn't let Asami outdo her. She'd gone to one of Asami's favorite jewelers, obtained a cheap band in Asami's size, and also purchased a sapphire and ruby precious stones. 

She fingered the ring in the pouch sewn into her every-day clothing, felt the texture of it. She'd made her next stop into the spirit world. Having a portal in the heart of Republic City was pretty convenient, and she'd made good time. Once in the Spirit World, she'd sat with the spirit vines, a hand to the earth, using each kind of bending as well as her spiritual energy to forge the rock and plants to form for her a band of jade and the vines to wrap the outside of the ring so they swirled around it. The vines also wrapped around the precious stones, insetting them at the top, the vines creating a thin, yin yang like pattern around them. 

It took a lot of discipline not to pull the ring out of the pouch and look at it. It was going to be finer than anything Asami could make for her, and Asami wasn't even done! Korra laughed at herself as she approached the door. She wasn't going to have the patience to let Asami complete her piece before presenting her own, but she would do her best. She enjoyed the idea of showing off in a field Asami usually excelled, but she didn't want to crush her completely, so she would wait. 

Intending to let the rest of the evening be average as she reached home, Korra slipped into the large foyer and moved to the coat closet to retrieve her belongings before announcing her arrival. As she opened the door to that closet, she pushed her hip into her hand, her brows furrowed. Her bags weren't there. There was no reason anyone should have noticed them. 

Puzzled, Korra padded back to Asami's lair. The sketches were now piled neatly in one corner of the table. Everything else on the countertop had been cleared away, leaving it perplexingly neat. An ornate jewelry box sat atop the sketches, and not seeing the betrothal necklace, Korra figured it had been placed inside. 

A clanking sound followed by a soft curse made her look toward the corner of the lair where Asami worked on prototypes. What was there wasn't any prototype from her industry but instead an older model satomobile Asami'd had a mind to restore. Korra had finally found her. She stepped toward the machine and saw that Asami was on a trolly, lying below the carriage, working on something. As she approached, she gently rapped a knuckle on the passenger door. 

The movements stopped. Korra leaned against the vehicle, waiting for Asami to come out from under the car. After a moment, Korra tilted her head, trying to get a peek below the carriage. "Asami?" 

A moment later, and Asami slid out from under the car and got up. She didn't look at Korra, instead she started putting utensils meticulously back in place and trying to wipe her hands off on an already grease streaked rag. "Sorry." She said as she busied herself. "I was just thinking that I'd had a mind to fix this up for a while, and I hadn't yet and figured I would get to it." There was something off about her voice. It sounded hoarse, like she'd had a cough. 

"Asami." Korra said again, and put her hands on the woman's shoulders. She turned the woman to face her and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her downturned face. Korra slid a knuckle under her chin and used it to lift her face, trying to read those jade green eyes. "Asami?" She whispered in surprise, when those eyes rose to meet hers, red and puffy and searching. 

Asami lifted a hand to touch the one of Korra's under her chin but then stopped and fell back to her waist, gripping the rag between her hands again, trying once more to futilely wipe the grease from her hands on a rag already mucked up.

"Asami what's wrong?!" Korra demanded softly. The woman's eyes flicked toward the desk in the corner then back to Korra. 

"I'm sorry Korra. You weren't supposed to find that. I didn't mean... I don't expect, well, _anything_. It was a project. An indulgence while you were gone. I didn't mean to drive you off. I didn't mean to-" Korra interrupted her with a kiss. The way Asami responded to it—tentatively at first and then almost desperately—made Korra's chest tighten. What had hurt her so much? Korra pulled her mouth back and pushed her forehead forward so that hers touched Asami's, maintained the intimacy but could speak to her. Asami had sucked in her bottom lip, a questioning but hopeful look in her eyes as they met Korra's.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have stopped you like that." Korra said, a bit embarrassed that she hadn't said something soothing first, to let Asami know everything was okay. She had just wanted so badly to fix that hurt look in her girlfriend's eyes. It had seemed far too much like the expression she wore on certain dates, certain... anniversaries. "I didn't even realize you knew I'd found it." She closed her eyes, her brows drawing in, amused and slightly embarrassed. "What gave me away? I didn't even take the thing with me, though I think I'd originally meant to." 

Asami let out a shaky laugh. "I found you there, asleep. I, I went to get some tea to wake you with and to figure out what to say, but when I came back, you—you were..."

_Gone_

The word hung between them for a moment. Korra sighed and released her girlfriend, straightening up, pulling her shoulders back, even stretching them for a moment. "You thought I was upset." She made it a statement. Her eyes found Asami's hands clenched around the rag. Korra jerked her head toward the sink. "I'll stay right here. Go ahead and wash up a bit." She grinned then, her mind caught abruptly on how they both looked. Asami was in sweats and a tank, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail that only held slightly more hair back than it let fall free, and she was covered in grease. The grease smears on her cheeks were actually pretty cute, but Asami, when anxious, got more particular even than usual and it would help her gain her footing to wash and straighten up. 

Korra herself was wearing day old travel clothes, which she had slept in, and her own ponytail was probably getting pretty messy. At least her hands were clean. She almost wished she'd taken a moment in their bedroom to change into something else before going off on her quest, but it evened things out, for them to both be in states of disarray. 

Despite promising to stay right where she was, she ended up going to Asami at the sink as she washed her hands thoroughly. She leaned her hip against the edge of the large sink—almost half the size of a washer basin. "What had you meant," She asked, almost casually, "when you said it was just a project?" She fought back the urge to touch the ring through the cloth of her pants and instead linked her fingers above her head, palms up, and stretched upward. 

Asami had done what she could to clean her hands and was now taking a cleaner rag over her cheeks. She seemed significantly calmer now. Her eyes searched Korra's for a moment. "I was planning to get it just right, and I knew it would take me a while. It seemed... early, to ask, but there's no way putting something like that together wasn't going to take me a while anyway. I thought it would be safe to start. I—you deserve something perfect for an occasion like that." 

"So you meant it? Mean it. You're all the way in?" Korra asked, moving to some wrist stretches in front of her chest, fighting to keep her voice as casual as possible. It had taken a moment for Asami's earlier words to sink in. Her girlfriend was prone to get so caught up in getting a thing just right, that her motivation behind doing something would sometimes get lost in her obsession. It hadn't occurred to Korra earlier that this could be the case now, but now she needed to know. 

Asami put the washcloth down and turned to face Korra completely, and Korra stopped fidgeting, caught in the intensity of her girlfriend's gaze. "Korra, I've been all in since... since I don't even know." She shook her head. "There is no doubt in my mind that I am yours as long as you want me." She stepped closer, closing the distance. She took one of Korra's hands in both of hers. "Korra, you inspire me every day, and you are my family. Even if you never want to marry me, that will be true." 

Korra touched Asami's face with her free hand, tracing the faintest remnants of some grease on her cheek. She smiled. "Shouldn't you be presenting that necklace? With words like that?" 

"Korra! It's not ready! You deserve something much better. I will ask again, I promise! When I have—"

It was the ring, held up to her, that caused Asami to stop speaking. As Asami had spoken, Korra had dropped her free hand from Asami's face and retrieved it. Korra grinned wickedly at the look of stunned astonishment on Asami's face, the woman's eyes transfixed on the jewelry. Her gaze then shot up to Korra's own and Korra leaned forward and gave the woman a peck on the lips. She was just too cute not to. Asami blushed. "Is this—" She started, but Korra had begun speaking simultaneously. 

"This is why I was gone. I wasn't about to let you show me up. I figured I'd hold onto to it until you were ready, but now I find myself impatient. You sure you don't wanna walk over and grab that necklace?" 

"Korra!" Asami said, her voice full of wonder as her increasingly flushed face turned back to the ring. "What I have is a piece of junk compared to this!" 

Korra laughed and gave a dramatic shrug. "Are you saying no then?" Her eyes twinkled, knowing Asami wasn't about to say no 

The woman whirled quickly around and strode to her desk. Korra followed on her heels. As Asami reached the desk, she drew out the necklace from the jewelry box. She turned around to face Korra. As soon as she had turned completely around to face her, Korra swooped Asami up and planted her bottom onto the desk and moved to stand between the woman's knees. It was fun, she found, to have Asami this off balance, but in a happy way. Her face was brighter than ever now. 

"You, are not being fair!" Asami insisted, laughter in her voice. 

Korra gave a lazy shrug and held the ring out again. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Asami blurted out, "Will you marry me?" She proffered the necklace out toward Korra. 

Korra offered her neck, "I will." She said, her voice barely above a whisper as Asami leaned forward to adorn her neck with the jewelry. As she leaned back, the pendant resting at the hollow of her throat, Korra offered the ring up again. "And will you, Asami, marry me?" 

Asami paused for a moment, amusedly assessing Korra. "Yes, on the condition that I can still perfect that necklace. It's an embarrassment to my workmanship and you deserve something better." 

Korra laughed out loud. "You can't ask me to marry you and then make conditions!" 

"If you don't have to be fair, then neither do I." Asami insisted. Korra laughed again. 

"Of course you can." She motioned the ring again, indicating she wanted Asami's finger. Asami lifted her hand and let Korra slide the ring onto her finger. As it nestled into place, Asami used her other hand to pull Korra's face up to hers and she kissed her so intensely that once they broke away, Korra had to take a deep breath. "I'm sorry I made you think I'd left," she said softly, breathlessly. 

Asami smiled sadly down at her. "You didn't make me think that. I thought it because... well, you know why. But that wasn't your fault. It was all a big mistake. But Korra, I doubt you could make me any happier than I am right now." 

 Korra grinned wickedly. "You wanna bet?" She challenged, sliding her hands to Asami's hips and pulling the woman to the edge of the desk, stepping up to press them together. With a sound of approval, Asami lowered her mouth back down to Korra's, and the engaged shared in the first of many, many more kisses. 


End file.
